Plunder

Private Equity's Plan to Pillage America

By: Brendan Ballou

Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly

The authoritative exposé of private equity: what it is, how it kills businesses and jobs, how the government helps, and how we stop it

Private equity surrounds us. Firms like Blackstone, Carlyle, and KKR are among the largest employers in America and hold assets that rival those of small countries. Yet few understand what these firms are or how they work.

In Plunder, Brendan Ballou explains how private equity has reshaped American business by raising prices, reducing quality, cutting jobs, and shifting resources from productive to unproductive parts of the economy. Ballou vividly illustrates how many private equity firms buy up retailers, medical practices, prison services, nursing-home chains, and mobile-home parks, among other businesses, using little of their own money to do it and avoiding debt and liability for their actions. Forced to take on huge debts and pay extractive fees, companies purchased by private equity firms are often left bankrupt, or shells of their former selves, with consequences to communities that long depended on them.

Perhaps most startling is Ballou’s insight into how this is happening with the active support of various arms of the government. But, as Ballou reveals in an agenda for reigning in the industry, private equity can be stopped from wreaking further havoc.

©2023 Brendan Ballou (P)2023 PublicAffairs

Critic reviews

“As shorthand for the crazy unfairness of financialized modern capitalism, more accurate than Wall Street or hedge fund is private equity—the state-of-the-art corporate-takeover mode that has brought predatory greed and ruthlessness to new levels, wrecking companies and workers’ lives as a matter of course. Plunder is the right word, as Brendan Ballou lucidly explains in his infuriating, illuminating, essential book. And his practical plan for reining in this monstrous new centerpiece of our system makes total sense.”—Kurt Andersen, author of Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America

“As private equity has risen to seize everything from nursing homes to clothing retailers to private prisons to our retirement savings, Ballou has written a cogent and indispensable book on this strange financial world. Ballou shows how these modern-day robber barons not only target the poor and serve themselves, but also bore into the foundations of our economy and society, weakening it for everyone. He ends with a stirring roadmap for reform.”
—Jesse Eisinger, ProPublica, author of The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives

“Private equity might be the biggest economic story of the century, and yet, so few people understand what it is or how it’s crippling our economy and our democracy. In Plunder, Ballou tells a complicated story clearly and explains how private equity shapes your life and importantly, how it can be stopped. For anyone who wants to understand why our economy has become so broken and so unjust—and for anyone who wants to fix it—Plunder is required reading.”—Zephyr Teachout, professor of law, Fordham Law School, and author of Break 'em Up: Recovering our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money

From Maxed Out to PE - where are we heading?

I have been training corporate bankers in risk analysis for over a quarter of a century. After the subprime crisis, I started saying that the next crisis would be caused by PE funds, although I did not predict the extent to which they would game the system. The bubble will eventually burst, as the processes described are not sustainable. It just makes me angry that those excesses destroy free market economy.

This is an Insightful book

This is a great book from a knowledgeable source. Worth a listen to better understand the radical transformation of the finance industry over the past 15 years.

Be prepared to be angry

Be prepared to be angry when you read this book. Many people are already aware that private equity companies are financial vultures and corporate cannibals. In this book Brendan Ballou draws the curtain back from the insatiable lust for financial gain of private equity firm operators, while being impervious to the devastation and literal death they cause. They accomplish this through a deliberate strategy of preying on constituencies who are least able to defend themselves. The extreme profits made from these activities provides an irresistible incentive for persons so inclined to engage in these tactics—the inhumanity of these individuals is rarely made public.

Ballou documents the repeated practice of purchasing a company (with someone else's money), selling off its property for an quick profit, and then charging that company to lease back the property it once owned as well as pay exorbitant fees for the privilege of being owned by the private equity company. This emphasis on extraction above all else causes layoffs and poor service to customers, as well as often poor return to investors. Another, different and especially egregious, example is private equity operation of prison phone systems. In addition to excessive call charges to prisoners who cannot afford them, the law enforcement jurisdictions responsible for the prisons themselves receive some of the profits—a practice that walks and quacks like a blatant conflict of interest. Further examples of private equity short term profit extraction are similarly documented for nursing homes, hospitals, rental properties, and retail chains. Suing these companies is like chasing shape shifting phantoms that do tangible damage, while obscuring themselves from accountability.

The uncanny alliance between politicians, courts, and regulators in turning a blind eye and their even assisting this plunder of employees, customers, prisoners, and investors is difficult to fathom—until their political campaign contributions and intense lobbying are taken into account. Government officials at all levels are susceptible to influence, coercion, and co-opting by private equity operators, who expend significant funds on influence to provide favorable conditions for destructive private equity practices. At this stage, most of the government is captured at some level by these influences—yes, mainly through Republicans, although the Democrats being in power by itself does not ensure a clean slate. It's strangely axiomatic that the amount of campaign money a candidate amasses often determines the differences between being elected and defeated—and it's equally perplexing why the voting public is influenced by political ads to this unconscionable extent.

There are recourses available for stopping these cruel practices, which Ballou enumerates at the end of the book—if you read nothing else, read that part. Due to their outsized influence on government legislatures, administrations, and courts, the most reliable approach to rein in private equity excesses appears to be to kick them in the profits. Once these destructive behaviors are seen to be unprofitable, the bleeding from everyone else will at least be stanched—we should support effective efforts to apply the pressure now.

Great topic and great detail

Many compelling stories of the macro economic and even personal harms of the rise of private equity. Though I share much of the author's critique and policy interests, I wish the book had more high level political and economic context. There's plenty of history, to be sure, but it seems aimed at gotchas about the voting records of specific politicians rather than discussing the sometimes very reasonable choices the American electorate and leaders made that had unintended side effects. Here, we get the side effects without the counterweight of many of the positive primary effects of policy initiatives. Still a good read on an issue of rapidly growing importance.

Excellent

The only way it could be better is by spending more time of the standard counter arguments. For the Kool-aid drinkers in the industry, exhaustive examples will never be enough.

Informative and Frustrating

This is an excellent explanation of Private Equity. The author does a good job of "piercing the corporate veil" in explaining how Private Equity has harmed average American people. It's very frustrating how greedy these corporations are. The upside is we are given some ideas on how to combat the worst of PE offenses. I highly recommend you educate yourself by consuming the information in this book.

Good but unbalanced

As someone who is not knowledgeable about the topic, this book taught me lots. That said I can’t say how biased the author is.
The low star reviews claim that the author is biased, inexperienced, and or misleading. Though with audible there is no info on reviewers, so I can’t say they are credible.
I really did get a lot from this book, after all before reading I had no idea what Private equity was or what PE firms did. The author does rag very hard on the companies, but doesn’t say that they shouldn’t exist, just that they need badly regulation.
This book may be unbalanced, as it doesn’t mention many redeeming aspects of PE, but I would say that’s for a purpose. This book is a rallying cry to educate people on PE and to make changes to the law to limit them.
My favorite parts of this book were those that mention PE’s grip on the US government.

Eye opening!!

If you want to stay ignorant then skip, if not put that credit to good use.

Interesting but a bit biased

Focuses almost entirely on the negative side of private equity with almost none of the benefits provided by the industry. A more balanced treatment would have been better

Makes you angry!

Important, far reaching topic that is not being examined or talked about enough. Good job exposing this topic that can impact all of us!